


The Rule of Three. Two. One. One. One.

by ohjustdisarmalready



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Second Person, heavy duty existential BS, it means across space, me being artsy and pretentious, not entirely linear time, scattered across space does not mean underground, tenses all over the place, the nature of reality when one is scattered across time and space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:23:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6191347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohjustdisarmalready/pseuds/ohjustdisarmalready
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a man (there is not a man).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rule of Three. Two. One. One. One.

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty much something I pounded out in a half hour or so and I am terribly sorry. I just needed to get something out, it's been like a year. Apparently I am Undertale now??

There’s a man in the corner behind you.

He’s not tall, although he is taller than you, and he’s not short, though he would not brush the ceiling if he stood tall. He is not dark and he is not light. The fact that he is at all is unusual, and suspect.

Not that you would know.

You’ve lived your whole life with this man, when he was a roundish, clumsy boy, when he was an old withered thing, and today, when he is a man who stoops in the corner behind you. He never used to look like he’s melting, but time changes all things.

Your brother, you think, or your imaginary friend. He does not look like you. He does not look like much of anything. Sometimes he isn’t much of anything. Often he is more nothing than something, and yet.

And yet.

He directed you to the mountain, and you went. He said there were people like him there, and you’d looked him in his melting, gooey sort-of-eyes and gone. Your closest companion and greatest support, your endless tormentor and quite possibly your hallucination. If he wasn’t real, what did that make you?

Well, either he is real or nothing of your life is, because you followed him up the mountain and you felt his melting tar hands on your back and you fell, and you fell, and you fell.

He was not with you inside of the mountain. There was a barrier there that he could not pass. Or he would not pass. He was everywhere, but he was not inside the mountain.

You did not know how you felt about that, but before you could find out, the void was filled. Chara, they called themself, and they wanted to know what you intended to do with their home.  
You mostly wanted your old ghosts back. This, here, was someone else’s tragedy.

Chara did not ask the questions they had, anyway, so you did not have to explain. You walked and walked and walked.

You walked into another ghost-not-brother-brother-brother and you could not. You could not keep walking. So you stood until he left and you kept walking again, to the sounds of a kindly voice and Chara’s narration as you found things that you didn’t understand.

The woman wants the child in your head and the brother-not-brother they are connected to. She does not want you, and she does not have the man. She burns you as you leave.

She does not push you into a mountain. You are not certain how you feel about her, but the child in your head isn’t, either, so it’s alright.

You found your ghost again, briefly. He had been in this shape before. But when you called his name, he forgot you said anything and introduced himself again. He is not your ghost.

You continued. You did not sleep.

You continued. You did not sleep.

You. You. You.

You are not a child. You are a ghost in human form, making friends and enemies as the child dictates. They continue to act as if you are the one in charge. That, you suppose, is kind of them. You want your ghost back.

You finished your travels. It is the end.

There is a man in the corner behind you.

He is a sage. He is a murderer. You call your ghost’s name.

But nobody came.

Your child, they must be your child by now, sees their brother and forgives him. He forgives them, and in that forgiveness, truly knows them for the first time.

Your child cries. Their brother does, too. You hope that they will be happy together, but you can only have one ghost and you need yours back.

You lay your memories to rest and put a reminder in your phone. It is the first and only time you have typed. You wish your ghost was there to teach you. He would gurgle and quake and you would feel better.

Your phone dings and reminds you to take care of the dusty flowers.

This is as it should be.

Then you return to your-Chara’s-your friends, and they fret about your soul being different. You do not tell them that you are not being haunted, because you will be haunted once more soon enough.

You walk through the barrier. You walk into the place again that you came from. There is a buzzing in the background, but you have more important things to do. You sit at a table like you always do.

There is a man in the corner behind you.

You are home.

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, feel free to ask any questions, but as a disclaimer I have no idea what's going on here, so if you have a theory you're probably right.


End file.
